The writing of an accountBay leafWineWaterThe name of someone forgotten spoken
Invocation Approach
Tone
Plain and exact
Address
ClioProclaimerMuse of History
Relationship
The record that outlasts the one who lived it
Warning
She keeps what was done and not what you would prefer
Resonance
Historians archivists and witnesses
Symbols
The scrollThe water clockThe lyreThe laurel
Mythology Summary
Clio, the proclaimer, is one of the nine Muses named by Hesiod (Theogony 77-79), daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. She becomes the Muse of history in the Hellenistic and Roman handbooks, an association later readers found in Herodotus' proem, which invokes the Muses as a body and does not name Clio. Like her sisters she is a figure of collective cult, not an individual goddess: the sanctuary on Helicon and the Thespian Mouseia are the attested worship (Pausanias 9.29-30).
Modern Practice
The Muse of the record: invoked before an account is written, an archive started, or testimony given. The practice is accuracy - the Muses know how to say many false things that look like truth (Theogony 27), and Clio is the one asked to prevent it.